I have so many favourite easy design tools. But to narrow it down, here are my top three for my laptop. My top pick is the FREE software Picmonkey. This software is super easy to use and you get professional results. It works well with creating cool designs to use for tips, lists, comments or quotes. This software also allows you to take a photo and adjust, crop, add effects, or add words. You can also upgrade Picmonkey for a couple of bucks a month to open more design options.
A second option to play with a picture and add a quote is Foto. This is an easy photo editing site to use on your laptop that is also free. There are lots of fonts to choose from as well as frames, different effects, basic editing, and collage options. You need to have a picture to start with as the background.
Canva is a brand new on-line graphic design software that allows you to create all sorts of graphics from presentations, Twitter headers, blogs and more. They have tons of templates to help guide you in your design. Then there are graphics, backgrounds, pictures, and text to add. Just up load your own image and get started. If you choose to, there ‘s also stock images that you can purchase for only $1 – which makes this a fantastic, economical tool. Really it is like a one stop shop for creating.
And you may be asking how I made the word cloud at the top of the page. I used Wordle, a free on-line program. Take any text you like and copy and paste it in the text box. Click the Go button and you have a word cloud. There are options for different fonts, colours, direction of text and I discovered if you hover over a word in your Wordle you can delete that one word from the graphic. Love it!
Looking for great design apps for your smart phone? Here are a few of my favourites. Be careful though as it is easy to get addicted to these and completely lose track of time.
Pixlr Express is my favourite for using photos I have taken and adjusting them with lots of filters, effects, borders, and even stickers to make them work with the quote I am using.
Instaframe Pro is a simple way to make a collage of photos. If you like using Instagram or Pinterest, then this is a handy little app.
Squaready – An app to crop photos and a photo editor. Simple but effective. You don’t need to get too complicated to find a useful app.
And Doodle Buddy is a good example of that. I was just using this the other day with my 4 year old and realized you could take a photo and add a few words or quote and a cute graphic and voila you have an updated photo quote for a blog or post.
And lastly for something more elegant, Word Swag is a great tool to add your words in neat configurations to your own photos or to their free backgrounds. I really like this app because the word designs are unique amongst all the apps I have seen so far.
These are a few of my favourite easy design tools that will help save you time and get more productive. If you still find that getting your graphics ready for social media is taking too much time or you feel that you aren’t that creative, that it is time to outsource this task. Focus on what you love and delegate out what you don’t. If I can help just drop me a line.
I hope these suggestions of apps and design programs get your creative juices going. I would love to hear what your favourite tool is.
